


we get the body in the coffin in the ground on time in the end

by unenthusiasticcavalry



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast), Wooden Overcoats (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Magnus Archives Universe, Discussion of Death, Fear of Death, Gen, Wooden Ovecoats Characters are avatars now cause i thought it would be fun, aka quite possibly the silliest thing i've ever written, but still a fool, everyone's slightly more evil
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:20:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24494914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unenthusiasticcavalry/pseuds/unenthusiasticcavalry
Summary: Considering the amount of elderly folks and wacky accidents that called Piffling Vale home, Georgie wasn’t too far off when she had called it ‘heaven’s waiting room’. The End had an iron grip on the place. And so, Rudyard and Antigone Funn, avatars of the End, were happy enough to call it home.Call it *funeral* home, if you'll pardon the pun
Relationships: Antigone Funn & Rudyard Funn, Eric Chapman & Georgie Crusoe, Georgie Crusoe & Antigone Funn, Georgie Crusoe & Rudyard Funn
Comments: 10
Kudos: 28





	we get the body in the coffin in the ground on time in the end

Rudyard and Antigone Funn run a funeral home on the island of Piffling Vale. They’ve lived on the island their whole lives. Most that live there always thought the twins to be odd. They don’t know the half of it.

Well, perhaps  _ odd _ wasn’t quite the word, especially when it came to Rudyard. Had you asked the citizens of Piffling their honest opinion of the man, it would have likely ranged somewhere from “strange” to “unspeakably pedantic and not likable in the slightest”. People can be so harsh with their words.

It didn’t bother him much. Or at least, he pretended that it didn’t. As far as the Funn twins were concerned, as long as they were allowed to have their macabre run of the island’s deceased and to-be-deceased, it was serving its purpose. As long as no one got too curious as to why they always seemed to show up at the abode of the deceased with a flyer and an inappropriately aloof attitude exactly at the time of death (or perhaps a few minutes before), then this curious little island was doing it’s job. Considering the amount of elderly folks and wacky accidents that called Piffling home, Georgie wasn’t too far off when she had called it ‘heaven’s waiting room’. 

The End had an iron grip on the place. And so, Rudyard and Antigone Funn, avatars of the End, were happy enough to call it home. 

Call it  _ funeral _ home, if you’ll pardon the pun.

But, returning to the main point, that is: Funn Funerals _ used _ to be the only funeral home on the island, and so, all the dead and fear thereof was concentrated right into their little practice. Rudyard had liked it that way. Antigone had liked it that way. They had been perfectly miserable the way things were.

Until Eric Chapman had shown up, that is. Perfect, strange Eric Chapman, who the twins couldn’t help but notice had the air of someone touched by an entity that was… quite distinctly  _ not _ The End, although neither could quite place it. And yet, he had set up shop with  _ his  _ funeral home just across the square. And waltzed right into  _ their _ funeral home to…  _ introduce himself _ . And waltzed right back out. 

* * *

“Suspicious,” Rudyard remarked, just as Chapman closed the door.

“Yes. Quite.” Antigone muttered.

“Antigone, did you think that-”

“Yes. Quite.”

“You didn’t let me finish.”

“Yes. Quite.”

He sighed. “Well, I for one am not having it.”

“Yes. Quite.”

“Yes. Neither are you?”

“Yes- no, no wait, I-”

“No? Antigone, he’s-”

“Shut up, no, shut up, wait-”

“We’ve had the run of this island for-”

“My God, Rudyard, just-”

“Who does he think he is, hm? Eric Chapman. Touched by who knows what. Disease, probably. Corruption. Filth. Dirty man, coming in to ruin our perfect little-”

“ _ Rudyard.” _

“What, Antigone,  _ what _ ?”

“I don’t think he’s… he’s not Corruption. Can’t be.”

“Seemed rather dirty to me.”

“He was spotless, Rudyard.”

“Yes, well-”

“Of course I noticed he was spotless and shiny and perfect! How could you not? That doesn’t mean anything, don’t you talk to me like that,  _ shut up _ !” Antigone sputtered suddenly.

Rudyard blinked in surprise, but then quickly returned to his theory. “Well, he’s not one of us, and he’s not ordinary, I can tell you that, thank you very much. So, I am not having it.”

“You said.”

“Yes I know. I thought I’d reiterate for emphasis.”

“That’s extremely irritating.”

“Yes, well, yes, I suppose it might be. Now, look here: he cannot be allowed to open that funeral home. We don’t need the competition, Antigone, we need fear.”

“Yes.”

“And so, we’re going to stop him.”

“Yes. Stop him. Rudyard, how exactly do you propose we ‘stop’ him? There’s no laws about beautiful handsome men opening rival funeral homes.”

“There ought to be.”

“I didn’t say anything, that was you! Shut up, I didn’t say anything!” she said, flying off the handle again in embarrassment at yet another slip of the tongue.

“How do you go about making a law, Antigone?” Rudyard continued, completely oblivious.

“How should I know?” she exclaimed.

“You’re right, it would take much too long.” He thought for a second, and a grin crossed his face. “We could kill him.”

“You know we can’t. Not before it’s time.”

“How do we know it isn’t his time?”

“He didn’t show a sign of it when he came in. You didn’t notice?” she asked.

“Too busy trying to ward out the stench of filth.”

“He’s  _ not _ Corruption, Rudyard!”

“Then what is he?”

“S’not human, that’s for sure,” came another voice from behind them. They turned to see Georgie Crusoe stood in the entranceway, cup of cold ‘tea’ in hand. “Could smell it on him.”

“Aha!” Rudyard exclaimed. “Antigone, what did I tell you-”

“S’not Corruption either. Could tell that by lookin’ at him.”

“Right, then, what was he?” Antigone asked.

“Not sure. He hides it well, anyways. Dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” Antigone asked, blushing despite herself.

“Yeah. You guys are weird. People with good instincts know to stay away. He’s a bit likable though. Whatever he’s tryin’ to pull might work. If I don’t get him first.”

* * *

Being a Hunter in Piffling Vale was about as boring as life as a Hunter could get. Especially, as Georgie had learned, when the only two avatars permanently residing on Piffling were your bosses. It had basically gone: Georgie needed a job, the twins had an opening to keep the practical side of the place up and running. Rudyard thought he could create some master plan that would allow him to feed on Georgie’s fear just by nature of the place but… plans that worked had never been Rudyard’s forte. Instead, their presence had awakened something in Georgie. She figured out what they were somehow (she feared with the covert influence of the Eye or the Web, though she wouldn’t admit it). And slowly but surely, as she clocked her time in at Funn Funerals day in and day out, the urge to hunt things like the owners down grew inside her. She indulged it. She was great at hunting monsters down. 

But she never seemed to want to off the twins. She wasn’t really sure why. She’d split her bets between some weirdo paranormal bargain that was struck when she got hired on, and the fact that they weren’t really doing much harm. She had always figured that the End was the one that wasn’t worth bothering as much, since there wasn’t much about it that could be bothered. And the twins themselves were… lovably hapless. Or maddeningly incompetent. What she would call them depended on her mood, really. 

Which is all to say that hunting down Eric Chapman sounded like great fun. She hadn’t had a good run since she had cleared out the Stranger’s circus at the edge of town. 

But she also knew that going after him on a hunch probably wasn’t the best idea for two reasons: 1) she feared she was wrong and he was just an annoyingly charming but otherwise normal guy, and 2) she didn’t know what he could do yet. Best not to get herself killed by the new guy if he was just a little bit more powerful that she would have thought.

* * *

“Oh, right. I’d nearly forgotten we’d had a Hunter in our midst,” said Rudyard. “Thank you for volunteering to fix this, Georgie.”

“Wait a minute. Didn’t say I was going to. Only said that I probably could get to him before he caused any real trouble. Not really the same thing.”

“Real trouble? Have you looked across the square? There is another funeral home where there didn’t used to be. I’d say we have enough real trouble on our hands to choke a horse. Or to strangle an Eric Chapman.”

“Not what I meant. I need to figure out what he can do first.”

“Well, how long will that take?” Antigone whined.

“Dunno. Probably not long. I’m great at figuring out what monsters can do.”

“We don’t use the  _ m _ -word around here, Georgie, we’ve discussed-” Rudyard chided.

She fixed an annoyed stare at him. “ _ Monster _ ?”

He winced. “Yes.”

“Why not?”

“We’ve been over this. It’s offensive and presumptuous and also it makes me feel badly about myself,” he replied, trailing off at the end.

“Rudyard, you were just proposing murder a second ago,” said Antigone.

“I was, wasn’t I? Yes. Back to the matter at hand, that is: killing Eric Chapman. Before he can take any fear away from us.”

“Rudyard, there are still police and things. You can’t just go around murdering whoever you want before it’s bound to happen.”

“Screw the cops,” Georgie muttered.

“And besides,” Antigone continued, “how do we know for a fact that this will do anything against us. If we’re both fairly certain that he’s  _ not _ with the End-”

“Filthy man, that Chapman,” he muttered.

“Then who says he’s going to affect any of the fear that we’re drumming up, hm? The whole funeral home thing could be a funny coincidence, and he could go about his business and we can go about ours-”

“And Georgie could kill him in a few months when she can’t stand her hunger for flesh a second longer,” said Rudyard. “Yes, Antigone, my thoughts exactly.”

“I don’t eat people,” Georgie replied.

“You don’t?”

“No. Not unless you keep tempting me.”

He gulped.

Antigone cleared her throat. “Both of you, just, hm, shut up! Rudyard. I don’t know why you’re suddenly thinking of people being scared as a quantifiable thing that that lovely stupid man can just steal away from us. We both know it doesn’t work like that. Besides, people are scared of death either way. It’s the one thing that doesn’t change. So, I think we’re fine on the fear front. He’s not as well-established here, and he’s working for something that will likely take a lot of work to get the people of this island good and afraid of without drawing enough attention to himself to make him a target. The only thing we’ve got to worry about here is practicality.”

“Practicality? Antigone, Georgie does the practicality.”

“Then I’ll talk to her. Georgie, the main reason we hate that gorgeous specimen is because he threatens to drive away our business. Monetarily speaking. Is that correct?”

“Yeah, I’d say so. Unless he starts some kind of reign of terror,” she replied.

“Reign of terror and worms and bugs. Crawling, disgusting. Filth. Chapman,” Rudyard grumbled.

The two women ignored him. “So, what is the plan?” Antigone asked.

“Poison, I think,” said Rudyard. “Er, wait, no, he’s basically already poison, so, hm, airshot between the toes? Or Georgie can just tear him apart limb from limb like I said before. Messy, but-”

“We are not murdering Eric Chapman in cold blood unless it’s our duty to do so, Rudyard.”

“Antigone, I’d say it’s already our duty. To protect the fearful sanctity of Funn Funerals.”

“You know what I meant. Georgie says she can figure out what to do with him. That might speed things along, if the Hunt decides he’s better off dead-”

“Not how it works,” Georgie interrupted.

“Oh, just shut up, the both of you! The murder of Eric Chapman is-”

At that point, the bell at the entrance rang, and Chapman himself walked inside, just in time to hear the end of Antigone’s statement. He smiled genuinely despite it.

“Hello again, all! Sorry to interrupt, just forgot my jacket.”

“Never invited you to take it off,” said Rudyard under his breath. Georgie elbowed him.

Chapman’s eyes flitted across the three of them, polite and unreadable. “Well, you all seemed to be in the middle of quite the exciting discussion, so I’ll leave you be, only-”

“Only what, Chapman? Don’t just stand there, spit it out, hm? Hm? Have to swallow some worms first, hm? Is that it?” Rudyard asked, eyes ablaze with hatred.

Georgie elbowed him harder. “Rudyard. Enough.”

“Only,” Chapman continued. “Georgie, could I talk to you a minute?” He smiled politely and raised his eyebrows in hopes that she would understand that he didn’t want the twins here. “ _ Alone? _ ”

**Author's Note:**

> so! I'm not sure if I'll keep going with this one, I just thought it was a fun concept to give a go. Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
